ClustrMaps

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

A servere day to walk. The distance 34 km (Actually 36 km because of wrong directions), the weather turned cold, intermittent rain, some mud in certain places and wind in the afternoon contributed to this. It takes much more out of us than yesterday. It was still 12 degrees in the evening and 10 degrees now at 10 pm.

A replica of the old windmill in La Mancha. Wonder if there are any real old ones left?

Tried picking some grapes along the vineyard. The grapes are quite small and very sweet and tasty, very different from the norm where the grapes are bigger and more bitter. This is my first Caminon in the autumn (the others in the past have always been in the Spring with no grapes to pick).

San Clementine is the old capital of La Mancha. The cathedral has a side altar for Saint James (represented not as a pilgrim unfortunately but as a killer of the Moors).

The albergue is basic with only three beds. I guess they don't expect too many pilgrims on this route. Only two of us here now.

After a big dinner ready to rest and recharge for tomorrow's walk which will probably be our last day for this trip. I will probably come back in the near future to continue the journey. This is also the first time other than walking in autumn that I broke the Camino into stages rather than finishing it all in one go.

Camino de Levante is around 800 km from Valencia to Zamora where it joins the Via de La Plata to Santiago de Compostela. Since I have already walked the Via de La Plata, Zamora will be a good end (and one of my favorite cities in Spain). There are still Toledo and Avila on the Camino de Levante to look forward to for the next time.